Kearny Financial Corporation Stock Downgraded (KRNY)

Kearny Financial Corporation (Nasdaq:KRNY) has been downgraded by TheStreet Ratings from from a buy to hold.

NEW YORK ( TheStreet) -- Kearny Financial Corporation (Nasdaq: KRNY) has been downgraded by TheStreet Ratings from buy to hold. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its compelling growth in net income, good cash flow from operations and expanding profit margins. However, as a counter to these strengths, we find that the stock has had a generally disappointing performance in the past year.

Highlights from the ratings report include:

The net income growth from the same quarter one year ago has significantly exceeded that of the S&P 500 and the Thrifts & Mortgage Finance industry. The net income increased by 9500.0% when compared to the same quarter one year prior, rising from -$0.01 million to $0.47 million.

Net operating cash flow has significantly increased by 227.96% to $5.15 million when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, KEARNY FINANCIAL CORP has also vastly surpassed the industry average cash flow growth rate of -84.96%.

Despite the weak revenue results, KRNY has outperformed against the industry average of 25.9%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues slightly dropped by 3.9%. The declining revenue has not hurt the company's bottom line, with increasing earnings per share.

The return on equity has improved slightly when compared to the same quarter one year prior. This can be construed as a modest strength in the organization. Compared to other companies in the Thrifts & Mortgage Finance industry and the overall market on the basis of return on equity, KEARNY FINANCIAL CORP underperformed against that of the industry average and is significantly less than that of the S&P 500.

This stock has managed to decline in share value by 4.99% over the past twelve months. Looking ahead, we do not see anything in this company's numbers that would change the one-year trend. It was down over the last twelve months; and it could be down again in the next twelve. Naturally, a bull or bear market could sway the movement of this stock.

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Kearny Financial Corp. operates as a holding company for Kearny Federal Savings Bank that provides various financial services in New Jersey. The company has a P/E ratio of 68.4, below the average banking industry P/E ratio of 73.6 and above the S&P 500 P/E ratio of 17.7. Kearny Financial has a market cap of $644 million and is part of the financial sector and banking industry. Shares are down 1.8% year to date as of the close of trading on Thursday.